Mark Purdy: Stanford assistant coach Dick Davey going out in New York style

Stanford associate head coach Dick Davey, left, talks with Stanford head coach Johnny Dawkins during a time out against Northern Arizona in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2008. Stanford won 66-57.(AP Photo/ Tony Avelar)

"I panic every game, literally panic," Dick Davey conceded, "because I don't want it to be the last one."

The last one will be this week, no matter what. Davey was in midtown Manhattan, ready to climb on the Stanford team bus to a practice. The Cardinal men play a National Invitation Tournament semifinal game Tuesday night.

Davey, a Stanford assistant for the past ﻿four years, announced after the regular season that he was retiring from a 44-year career that -- with stops at Santa Clara and Cal as well as a playing career at the University of the Pacific -- has touched nearly every hardwood floorboard in every gym in Northern California.

Of course, Davey is staying on the job until Stanford plays its final postseason game. So as the Cardinal has pushed its way through the NIT bracket over the past two weeks, Davey's basketball life has been getting extension after extension. Some players are using it as motivation, Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins implied.

"It's always in the back of our minds," Dawkins said the other day.

Davey is trying not to be embarrassed.

"You don't like being a focal point," Davey said.

Perhaps in some mystical way, the basketball gods have been looking out for the basketball man. He will coach his final game at Madison Square Garden, a world-famous hoops shrine. That will happen Tuesday night if Stanford loses to Massachusetts. If Stanford advances, Davey's farewell will come in Thursday's championship game.

Win or lose, allowing Davey to say goodbye to his sport at the Garden in a tournament setting will provide a far more fitting end to his career than the awkward way he was forced to exit his head-coaching job at Santa Clara five years ago.

You might remember. Although he owned a .569 winning percentage with three NCAA tournament appearances in 15 years with the Broncos, school officials decided in early February 2007 that Davey needed to "retire" at season's end and asked him to announce it immediately. Not after the last game. Right then. The loyal basketball man complied publicly, while explaining to his players that it wasn't his idea.

When word got out that Davey wasn't leaving voluntarily, the whole business became a public-relations nightmare -- especially when Santa Clara went on a tear and finished with a 21-10 record. Davey was never openly bitter about the departure. Before 2006-07, he had run off a string of frustrating 15-16 and 13-16 seasons. He understood why the school might want to make a move. Timing was the issue.

"I love Santa Clara," he said. "I was treated more than fairly for 30 years. I just wish they had waited until the end of the season. I wasn't quite ready ... and was frustrated about that."

Santa Clara did stage an uncomfortable farewell game and reception for Davey, but it never felt right. Davey was supposedly asked to step down because he had not elevated the Santa Clara program to greater heights, a difficult task at the academically stringent university. Davey's replacement, Kerry Keating, has compiled a worse record in the past five years (74-90) than Davey had (78-73) during his final five seasons with the Broncos.

But at this point, it's all water under the Interstate 280 freeway for Davey, who in 2008 received an offer from Dawkins to drive north and join his Stanford staff. Davey happily accepted and has thrived at his specialty -- teaching fundamentals and providing help with X's and O's. Davey has compared the situation to the great relationship he had as an assistant at Santa Clara under Carroll Williams. Davey spent 15 years in that position before assuming the head-coaching job.

"I might have worked for the two best bosses in America," Davey said.

Naturally over these past two weeks, there has been a lot of reminiscing, although Davey has no specific memory of the first basketball game he coached, at San Jose's Leland High in 1968. He landed there after playing basketball and baseball at Pacific, then spending two years as a catcher in the Giants' farm system.

"I really can't remember anything about that first game," Davey said. "All I can remember is we were a new school and we weren't very good. I taught social studies."

A few years later, Davey was off to Cal for a five-year assistant's stint under Dick Edwards. A fun memory there was of a multiple-overtime game against Oregon in 1977 when Ducks player Greg Ballard -- whom Davey had tried to recruit to Cal -- walked by the Bears' bench after the fourth overtime and said to him: "I can't take any more of this."

"I guess he was right," Davey said with a chuckle. "We won in the fifth overtime."

Then it was on to Santa Clara, where he was known for developing close relationships with players, including one who later asked him to be an usher at his wedding. Trouble was, Santa Clara had a game that night, so Davey rushed from the reception without changing and coached in his tuxedo.

"What I'll remember most is the quality of the kids," Davey said, rattling off the names of a half-dozen former players but asking not to mention them specifically because he didn't want to leave out anyone. Some showed up at a surprise reception for Davey that drew more than 150 people after Stanford's final regular-season game.

This week, Davey's son and daughter are in New York with him, along with a few close friends. His wife, Jeanne, is back at their Saratoga home and planning a move to their Hawaii condominium, where they plan to spend most of the year.

"It's time to hang it up and do other things," said Davey, who is approaching his 70th birthday. "I know I'm going to miss it. If it were strictly up to me, I would coach until I could no longer stand. ... But I want to spend some time with my wife. She's been kind of getting the short end of the stick for 45 years or so."

Then the basketball man apologized for cutting off the conversation and said he had to get on the bus. It was time for practice.